Though still feeling far from well, I was all curiosity to see the house in Spring Grove by daylight, so we called at the police-station and a stout sergeant of the T. Division accompanied us with the key, the place being still in the hands of the police.
As we pulled up in that unfrequented side-road I saw how mysterious and desolate the place was in the warm sunshine--an old red-brick Georgian house, with square, inartistic windows, standing solitary and alone, half covered by its ivy mantle, and surrounded by a spacious garden dotted with high trees, and neglected and overgrown with weeds.
As we walked over the moss-grown flags leading to the steps, I noticed the window I had smashed in making my entry that night.
The constable unlocked the door and we found ourselves in a wide, spacious hall, its stone flags worn hollow and containing some old-fashioned furniture. The atmosphere of the house was musty and close, and long cobwebs hung in festoons in the corners.
The room on the right, the one in which I had been found, I remembered well. It was just the same as when I had stood there in the presence of the Master and the notorious Jules Jeanjean. Upon its brown threadbare carpet were two ugly stains in close proximity to each other--the spots where both Lola and I had lain!
I saw the wall against which I had stood in defiance. An evening overcoat still lay upon a chair--the coat which old Gregory had abandoned in his hurried flight, when Stevens, the taxi-driver, had so opportunely appeared upon the scene.
"Nothing's been touched, sir," remarked the fat sergeant. "We've been waiting for you to see the place, and to tell us what you know."
"I know very little," I replied. "I simply fell in with a very dangerous set. They were evidently plotting something, and believing that I had overheard, attempted to put me out of the way."
"I imagine the same sort of thing happened to her. They considered she knew too much of their movements and might betray them."
"They spoke in French, so I couldn't catch."
"Oh! They were foreigners--eh?" exclaimed the sergeant in surprise. "Coiners or anarchists, perhaps."
"Ah. I've heard that two strangers have been seen up and down here in the night time," continued the sergeant. "We've got their description from a constable who's been doing night-duty. He says he'd know 'em again. Once he saw a woman with 'em, and he believes it was the young lady now in the hospital."